Are you under the impression that parent's money is infinite? Perhaps they don't have any costs of their own after their chidlren go off to school?

Let's put this simply : Jenny's parents have 100,000 in the bank. They spend 50k a year sending Jenny to school. After year two, they take out private loans to pay Jenny's junior and senior tuition costs. Jenny graduates and her parents take her to a steak dinner which they put on their amex card. They now have 100,400 (after all, they wanted that 120 dollar bottle of Cakebread) in debt and an income path that likely will decrease in the years ahead. They also have to cover their costs once they're of age where they can no longer work. Add in their healthcare costs and you've got a serious problem. I suppose you can claim that they will just take that debt to the grave, but that's not reallllly how this works.

So let me ask you... how does ANYONE spending more than they can afford on education NOT send the nation into debt?

Oh, by "nation" you mean private individuals, not the federal government.

You're kind of extrapolating a small segment of the population as representative of the entire "nation."